


Barnes & the Brooklyn Irish

by ameonna (zetsubonna), zetsubonna



Series: On Va Voir [15]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Saints Row
Genre: Alternate Universe: Mafia, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Established Relationship, M/M, The Author Regrets Nothing, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 19:48:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2122497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zetsubonna/pseuds/ameonna, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zetsubonna/pseuds/zetsubonna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anonymous said:<br/>skinny!Steve/Bucky Mafia!AU: Bucky is a mafia boss and Steve is his tiny-yet-somehow-extremely-intimidating "mafia wife".</p><p>Anonymous said:<br/>mafia AU: what’s up with the Irish and the Jews? what did they do to be on good terms?</p><p>Anonymous said:<br/>roaring 20s au! featuring: bootleggers, prohibition, and some good ol’ fashioned sex. starring: the pairing of your choice.</p><p>Anonymous said:<br/>more mafia au!? :D</p><p>I feel like I should just change my “I have no idea what I am doing pancake on bunny head fic” tag to “on va voir” and have done with it tbqh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We're Traveling in the Footsteps

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [巴恩斯与布鲁克林的爱尔兰人](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5473703) by [cindyfxx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cindyfxx/pseuds/cindyfxx)



It needed to be noted, the Irish felt, that Barnes wasn’t even native to Brooklyn. Oh, mercy no. Barnes was born in  _Indiana_ , of all places. Half the reason he ran the neighborhood, though, was because he had come in with his pa, his sainted mother, his pretty kid sister, and two little brothers via Chicago, Illinois, and everybody knew, the Chicago Irish  _ran the fuckin’ town_.

James  _Fitzpatrick_  Barnes had a Chicago accent and drove like a bat fresh out of Hell and racing the devil. Minnie was a mystery, nobody knew where she came from, only that she seemed just as Irish as her husband and she cooked fit to serve in Heaven. Of the four kids, only James  _Buchanan_  was big enough to be of note.

And he immediately made himself  _of note_.

James Fitzpatrick, see, had been one of the best boozerunners Chicago had ever seen, and he’d run out of town because Minnie’s brother was about to turn around and sell out the whole gang. Minnie’s brother never saw the inside of a courtroom, and Minnie never wanted to go home again, so down to Brooklyn they went. Minnie, naturally, was a snake-charmer, and James Fitzpatrick’s cousin, who was putting them all up, needed an innocuous kid to stand outside the speakeasy and keep watch for the boys in blue.

Cue James Buchanan.

First of all, the kid was gorgeous. Dames loved him, even when he was knee high and in short pants. He had a pouty little mouth and a head of perpetually tousled hair Minnie would eventually give up on until he took an interest in pomading himself. He always had a smile for everyone he met, a sparkle in his eye and a bounce in his step. Flappers let him hug their knees and he’d peek up their skirts before he was even old enough to know what he was looking for. They giggled about it. Such a flirt, that boy, completely shameless.

He was also a wise head as soon as his head was out- little fucker could  _count cards_  before his seventh birthday,and his fingers were so fast he could tell you what was in your wallet before you knew it was missing from your pocket, and while you were patting your pocket in disbelief he was reading you the time from your watch in his other little hand.

Naturally, Father Donovan tried to convert him to the side of the angels. A creature of perpetual hope, Father Donovan was, and beloved of everyone, even Minnie, who hadn’t been to church, she said, since she’d gotten married, and she wasn’t intending on having her little ones even Christened before the good father came and loved her into it.

James Buchanan’s paternal grandmother had stood before the Lord for him, so his tarnished soul had at least begun in the right place before it drifted. When it was time for little Jack’s Christening, James Buchanan had wandered out of the rectory because he was  _bored_ , and the future of the entire city of Brooklyn, maybe even the world, was changed forever, just because Widow Sarah’s boy, Steven, was and had been out of his damned mind from the very day he’d come screeching into the world, angry at God.

And that, honestly, was how everybody who knew Steven as a small-even-for-his-age boy would have described him. He was just _born angry_ , and any little thing could set him off. He didn’t like bullies, and the offense could be as small as a cigarette butt littered on a sidewalk or as large as a mugging, little Steven Grant Rogers would let you know  _exactly_  what your mother and Jesus and everybody thought of you and your worthless behavior, usually at the top of his lungs.

Ever heard a six year old with an asthmatic wheeze cuss a teenager six ways to Sunday for flipping a girl’s skirt?

James Buchanan did. He swore up to the day he died that it was the minute he fell in love.

***

The older boy- Sean Reilly claimed it was his twin brother, Jacob, but Jacob swore it was Sean, and Steven didn’t damn well care enough to remember because they were both jackasses- hit Steven just hard enough to black his eye and knock him down. He got up, of course, because Steven was constructed entirely of mulish temper and righteous fury in equal measure, and landed a very solid headbutt to Reilly’s midsection that sent him stumbling back at least two feet.

"Are you tryin’ to get beat to death, you little shit?" the Reilly boy demanded.

"I can do this all day," Steven spat, his formerly loose tooth landing near the Reilly boy’s shoe.

James Buchanan looked over this scene with great interest, and then he took hold of a loose brick from the ground and hurled it solidly into the back of the Reilly boy’s head, whereupon he toppled over at Steven’s feet.

"I had him on the ropes," Steven growled, his face flushed, his breathing labored.

"Course you did," James Buchanan agreed. "But you’d have had a better shot if you’d kept running."

"Don’t do you any good to run," Steven huffed, spitting out another mouthful of blood. "They just chase you down and beat you worse."

James Buchanan mulled it over for a moment and then laughed, hooking his arm around Steven’s neck and hauling him into a hug. “I  _like_  you,” he decided. “What’s your name?”

"Rogers."

"Your  _whole_  name, you jerk.”

"Steven Rogers."

"I’m James Buchanan Barnes," James Buchanan said proudly, and then, improvising, "But my friends call me Bucky."

His friends, of course, being the bootleggers that paid him fifty cents a week to look out for the cops.

***

The Depression hit a lot of folks hard, but the Barnes bunch had been making money under the table for so long that they could get around a lot of the trouble everyone else was going through. By the time James Buchanan-  _Bucky_ \- was thirteen and Steven was twelve, they were both working full time when they weren’t in school, watching corners, organizing small batch deliveries, distracting the cops- Steven was  _very_  good at providing a distraction, since he yelled half the shit he said and earned every punch swung in his direction.

As far as Steven knew, his mother was paying for his private parochial school out of her salary, but the Barneses had been picking up the tab since he’d gotten out of elementary two years before, and Father Donovan had promised Minnie and James Fitzpatrick that he’d put Steven on scholarship before he’d let anyone refuse the boy an education. He missed enough of school being sickly without having it denied him.

Things got dicey once or twice- like when James Buchanan discovered just how much he liked knives and just how well he could handle one with respect to a fella who’d taken knocking Steven’s mouth shut just a little too seriously, or any of the half dozen times Widow Sarah or Steven ended up coughing themselves into the hospital- but mostly, they were happy. They were inseparable around the neighborhood, one was almost never seen without the other unless he was waiting for him, so it hardly surprised Father Donovan when the confessions from Steven and James Buchanan started to get… complicated.

Violence was the source of their usual need for absolution. Steven’s favorite deadly sin was naturally  _wrath_ , and James Buchanan’s was  _pride_ , but between the two of them,  _acedia_  was never a problem, they always found a way to do the necessary. As far as boys tangled up with gangsters, bootleggers and good time girls went, they were relatively sweet, gentle kids, just a little too quick to show their tempers and to solve problems with their fists (or, in James Buchanan’s case,  _knives, bricks, bats_ and _whatever else was handy at the time_.)

Lustful thoughts, though. They started out with James Buchanan, migrated fairly quickly to Steven, then back to James Buchanan. He was proud of them, in a long-suffering kind of way, because they took far longer than any of the other neighborhood boys, the ones who were chasing girls (or for that matter, James Buchanan, when he was chasing girls), to escalate from _thinking about it_  to  _talking about it_  to  _touching themselves_  to _watching each other and touching themselves_   _while talking about it_ to  _kissing_  to  _touching each other_  and, finally, Father Donovan, having prayed about it as long as he’d been hearing about it, took them both aside and shook his head.

"Don’t tell a soul I told you," he said, staring them both down, "I’ll lose my parish and probably my frock, but I honestly don’t believe either of you are doing anything wrong, and I’m frankly tired of hearing about it. Get it out of your systems if you can and come back to me when you’ve done something about which you’re  _actually sorry_.”

Steven and James Buchanan had apparently not discussed what they were doing aside from whatever they’d needed to say while they were doing it, because the looks they gave each other were just as revealing of their uncertainty as those they’d given him. Father Donovan just sighed, shook his head, and went back to handle people who had problems that merited the intervention of the Holy Ghost.

***

They were fifteen and fourteen in 1932. Their world was gin joints and juke houses, fistfights and gambling, counting cards and call girls, and they were desperately devoted to each other.

Everything was changing fast, them most of all, and some part of James Buchanan, deep down in his heart of hearts, told him to cling to what he had as tight as a fistfull of dollars. Steven was between fevers and between bruises, Widow Sarah was working late, and James Buchanan’s parents knew better than to think he’d be anywhere but with Steven after work, so he didn’t have a curfew.

Somehow, someway, for some reason, James Buchanan thought it would be romantic if he could get Steven to take it all the way for the first time in his own bed, where he’d be comfortable- his growth spurt hadn’t made him much taller, but it  _had_  turned his back into yet another source of persistent, dull agony- and had procured a bottle of his mother’s best gin for the express purpose of loosening him up. Steven knew him better than anybody and was wise to his tricks, but he was apparently done with dancing around it anyway, and they made love in that frantic, fumbling, sweet way that teenagers do when they’re not sure what the Hell they’re doing, only that it feels good.

***

Two days later, Rogers had his first minor heart attack and had to stay in the hospital for ten weeks. Only Barnes bringing him his books every single day and taking the work back to the teachers in the morning kept him from having to repeat a grade.

***

The best cardiologist in Brooklyn was Doctor Feingold, and he saved Rogers’s life that time, and dozens of times after.

The best pulmonologist was Doctor Ignatieff, and while Rogers was in hospital for his heart, he came to check his lungs. Afterward, he saw Rogers twice a month to make sure he was breathing all right, to try different respirators if he needed them, and to practice dealing with his stress so he wouldn’t aggravate himself into any more attacks than were absolutely necessary.

Rogers didn’t like being treated like he was gonna break, but Barnes wouldn’t be talked out of taking him in for treatment and would literally pull every dirty trick a husband or a wife could think of if it would make him shut up about letting Barnes pay for it. He started that shit  _in high school_  and never let it go, and he wouldn’t take a nickel of help from his parents or anyone he didn’t work for. It was  _him_. Rogers was  _his_  family.

So, no, the Irish don’t fuck with the Jews or the Russians. Barnes won’t have it. It ain’t a discussion.

* * *

 

Barnes liked O’Grady. O’Grady’s mother had been, like Rogers’ mother, all by herself. Unlike Rogers’ mother, she’d been unfortunate enough to have six damn kids when her husband died, and O’Grady was the eldest.

When she was sixteen, O’Grady’s little sister took up turning tricks.

There was shame in it, obviously, at the time. A good Irish Catholic girl, selling herself for money. But it supported the other four kids and it kept her fed, so all O’Grady could do was try to keep an eye out and make sure her johns didn’t mess her up.

He was twenty when he got arrested for assaulting a john who’d split her lip with a knife. When he got out of his stint in the clink, he met Rogers, who was blustering and shouting down a pair of jerks who’d been giving some pretty ladies- obviously  _not_  call girls- some unwanted attention.

O’Grady had missed the time when Barnes and Rogers were becoming a known entity. There were few enough punks and fairies in the neighborhood who were crazy enough to be open about it, and Rogers had been in fights about it every day of his life until Barnes’s reputation had gotten scary enough that people who recognized Rogers steered the Hell clear. For a punk, Rogers was loud. He knew better than anybody else how people ought to behave. The Italians six blocks out could  _claim_  they knew about  _omerta_ and honor, but Rogers and Barnes had made it a real deal. Barnes’s Irish were as close to good guys as mobsters could be.

Thanks to Barnes and Rogers and their vision for their organization, it wasn’t half bad to be a working girl in their territory. O’Grady, when he decided to get into the act, went to Rogers first and told him his story, and Rogers had brought O’Grady in to meet Barnes. He didn’t stay, and O’Grady later figured that was how Barnes came around to asking him.

"Just one question," he asked O’Grady. "N’be honest, I don’t take no bullshit."

"Of course, Mister Barnes."

"How do you feel about queers?"

O’Grady hadn’t actually given it a minute’s thought, not even in the clink. “In what sense, Mister Barnes?”

"In the sense I’m joe as they go, but Rogers is  _mine_ ,” Barnes said, with a fierceness that O’Grady hadn’t heard from anyone short of a husband about to punch out a fella for looking askance at his wife. “Ain’t a secret, and if you got a problem with it, you can take a walk.”

"It ain’t none of my business what a fella gets up to when he’s behind a locked door with his sweetheart," O’Grady said, shrugging. "Rogers seems like a good guy. Got a streak of bad temper in him, though, ain’t he?"

"Mean as a snake," Barnes agreed proudly. "Good right cross, if a chucklehead stands still enough to let ‘im land it. Where do you want in, O’Grady? Rogers says you’re a good fit for security at the cathouse. I’m looking for a tough fella to keep the johns in line."

"I can’t stand a bully who picks on a woman," O’Grady confirmed. "My sister used to trick out. S’how I got myself locked up in the first place."

"Stick it out a couple years," Barnes offered, "And you’ll move up. I got standards for my boys, though. Stay out of stupid shit and don’t fuck with the Jews or the Russians. We’re on good terms."

"Not a problem, Mister Barnes."

Rogers liked O’Grady. O’Grady was a  _gentleman_ , he had declared. He kept the girls happy and he wouldn’t hesitate to throw a fella out on his ear if he got rude.

What really made Rogers happy, though, was when O’Grady talked his brothers into working with Moynihan down at the docks. It wasn’t just the girls that Rogers worried about, obviously. He was Barnes’s punk, after all. He didn’t like it when guys took up beating on fairies, either, and God help the idiot who said something ignorant about the Jews or the guys from Harlem in his presence.

Rogers was  _righteous like the fire o’God_ , and stared down Father Hoolihan every Sunday from the front pew. Father Donovan had known better, having been at the church back when Rogers and Barnes were altar boys. His usual sermons around Barnes’s birthday in March and Rogers’s in July had been about Jonathan and David, and Rogers had beamed at him like sunshine. Hoolihan was less liberal, and had privately informed Rogers and Barnes that he wasn’t going to be passing the eucharist to either of their unrepentant sinning, fornicating selves. Barnes had just rolled his eyes, but Rogers made it a point to go to Mass  _every week_ out of sheer defiance. _  
_

O’Grady liked that. Rogers didn’t quit. He got sick like death at least five times a year and was forever in and out of the hospital, but when he was on the streets he walked like he was bulletproof.

Moynihan liked Rogers because he was pretty sure Rogers was the reason Barnes took the  _protection_  part of protection money seriously. When the other mobs tried to come in and cause trouble, Barnes’s boys shut it down quick. Moynihan worked the docks and wrangled sailors and dock workers who cruised for fairies and punks because it was a good thing to do and somebody ought to do it. That made Rogers  _love_  him.

Tierney was the surprise. He was fresh off the boat, looking to start a family in the neighborhood, marry some sweet colleen and have a mess of kids. He worked gambling runs and kept watch for the cops, but he was an  _artist_ , and a damn good one. He painted murals. He and Rogers talked about colors and shading for hours while Tierney drank guinness and Rogers threw darts. Rogers couldn’t  _see_  colors, but he understood the concept and his illustrations were good enough that he did contract work sometimes. If he needed color in a piece, he trusted Tierney to take care of it, and never mind that most everyone else thought of him as a soused musclehead.

The quickest way to get into a fight in Barnes’s territory or anywhere near it was to insult Rogers in front of Tierney, Moynihan or O’Grady. They wouldn’t hear a word against him. That attitude, alongside their general competence and unwavering loyalty to Barnes, eventually earned them all spots as his lieutenants.

* * *

 

"No," Barnes said, crossing his arms over his chest, and Delaney frowned.

"What do you mean, no?" he demanded. "Look, I pay for protection, same as anybody. Why am I bein’ singled out? This is bull, boss. Total bull."

"Rogers don’t like how you’re treating your dames," Barnes said, rolling his muscular shoulders in a shrug.

"So, your  _punk_  don’t like how I’m working my call girls, you turn my brothel over to O’Grady? That’s it?”

One of the thugs behind Delaney sucked in a sharp breath, and Barnes started to look a little bored.

"That’s it," he said. "You live in my district, you play by my rules. Rogers don’t like how you run your girls, you don’t run girls no more. End of discussion. Get into gambling, booze halls, whatever else you like, but you put yourself in charge of one more trick, I let Rogers know what you just said, and he won’t be happy."

"I already ain’t happy." Rogers came stomping in from behind Moynihan, his blue eyes flashing in his somber face, and any friends Delaney thought he’d had in Barnes’s outfit pulled back real quick. Someone coughed. A shoe scuffed the floor. "I don’t like this guy, Buck. I think he needs to learn some manners."

"Who’s gonna teach me?" Delaney sneered. "You? What are you, a hundred pounds? Please."

"You ain’t bright, are you?" Barnes murmured, sitting back in his chair. "Bout the dimmest damn bulb in the box."

"You’re gonna apologize," Rogers said, low but loud, defiant. "You’re gonna apologize to Buck for disrespecting him with regards to me, and then you’re gonna go with Moynihan and figure up how much of your last six months’ take you owe those girls. And you’re gonna do it real quick, Delaney, or you’re gonna be real sorry."

Delaney snorted derisively, though he wasn’t quite dumb enough not to check Barnes’s face.

Barnes still looked bored. Unfortunately, Delaney didn’t know what  _bored_ meant on  _Barnes._

"Shove it up your ass, you little fairy shit," Delaney huffed.

"I tried, Buck," Rogers sighed.

Barnes shrugged. “I heard you, baby doll.”

Rogers shifted his weight back to his flat shoe, then used the orthopedic on his right foot to kick Delaney’s kneecap so hard it buckled. Before he could recover or lunge for a counter, Moynihan, O’Grady and Tierney were leveling cold steel at his head from three different angles.

"Wouldnae do that, if I were ye," Tierney drawled quietly.

"The thing about Rogers," O’Grady said,  "Is that he’s our  _inspiration_ , y’see. Makes sure everybody’s girls- mothers, sisters, daughters- get treated right and kept safe. He’s a bit picky about that sort of thing. It’s good for business.”

"So you’re going to take your medicine, yeah?" Moynihan added, cocking the hammer on his pistol. "And you’re gonna make nice the next time Mister Barnes is kind enough to invite you into his home."

"That is, unless ye were plannin’ a shallow little affair out in Jersey," Tierney said, smiling.

"Just be glad he won’t take the brass knuckles I keep trying to give him," Barnes offered as Rogers grabbed Delaney by the collar and began beating his face in. "Honestly, Billy. You better thank Rogers for handling you. If he hadn’t come home, well. The last guy who made a remark like that about my sweetheart still ain’t made it home from his swim in the East River."


	2. Of Those Who've Gone Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What went on with the Brooklyn Irish after Captain America and Bucky Barnes went down?

The Irish didn’t know what to do when Barnes and Rogers went down.

O'Grady, Moynihan, and Tierney weren’t Barnes. They were never Barnes. Shit, they weren’t even  _Rogers_ , and Rogers was supposed to be more inspiration than anything, but they’d all agreed quietly among themselves that if Barnes got drafted, Rogers would be in charge.

And then Rogers fuckin’ disappeared and came out  _Captain America_. Wasn’t a wise guy in Brooklyn didn’t recognize Steve Rogers, even three times as big as life and painted up in the stars n'stripes. They were happy and proud, but they were also  _headless_ , and the Germans were getting  _mean_ , the longer the War dragged on and the more they felt like they had to prove they deserved to be as American as anybody else.

The Jews and the Russians stayed loyal. They’d been at peace for almost ten years at that point, wasn’t any point in stirring trouble. Harlem, too, remembered Rogers, who’d volunteered with the WPA and taught classes, and dragged Tierney along for the ride. So they weren’t without allies, just without direction.

So what were the Irish to do?

The answer came from an unexpected place. Rebecca Barnes, who had the best damn head for numbers anybody had ever seen and thus all but run every half-reputable gambling house in the district under her brother, called in Father Donovan. The good father had retired from the parish, but he hadn't  _left_ , and he didn’t care much for how Hoolihan had tried to run Rogers and Barnes and their boys out of his congregation, after he’d worked so hard to keep their tarnished souls as shiny as possible.

Father Donovan had friends in Harlem and, more importantly, Father Donovan and Rebecca Barnes  _spoke fluent Spanish_. If the gangs wouldn’t be united in anything else, they were, at least, united in the faith, and in their incredibly high reliance on industrious young women like Rebecca, who took over everything when their brothers and husbands went to war.

So, Barnes’ Irish and the black Catholics, who were few but fierce,  _all_ learned Spanish, and they helped pull the Spanish-speaking folks who wanted to be part of the working class and the unions together. They were gelling  _years_  before any of the other gangs saw fit to let go of their cultural roots and prejudices. The Russians and the Jews kept out of the way, and the Germans were bullies who didn’t fuck with anybody that actually seemed like they might fuck back, so. However slowly, the Catholic gangs started to blur at the edges.

Tierney slyly turned Rogers’ red and blue into purple, and the irritated Germans and other Protestant gangs pejoratively nicknamed the united Catholic gangs the Brooklyn Saints. The Brooklyn Saints spread out across the country, not in any small part because they made friends with the rent boys and the fairies and let women into the leadership.

When Steve Rogers woke up in the twenty-first century, SHIELD thought they had scored themselves Captain America. After the battle of New York, Captain America disappeared, and everyone figured he just needed some time to decompress before he signed up for good. Funny thing was, in every city Steve Rogers visited, he was  _left alone_. No press, no harassment, no parades, nothing he wouldn’t want. It was classy and quiet, just enough attention to make sure he never went without.

It wasn’t until, though, SHIELD went falling, that the Saints came calling.


	3. But If We Stand Reunited

What is there to say about The Boss?

She grew up in the 3rd Street Saints out of Stilwater, her husky voice accented with Spanish and a constant sly grin on her lips. She was huge, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Johnny Gat, maintained a perfectly coiffed, carrot orange rockabilly pompadour that stood out in sharp contrast to her rich, dark brown skin, and had a lap broad enough for two thick girls to each pick a thigh.

Boss was wearing one of her usual black-on-black three piece suits with a Saints purple tie and matching hi-top sneakers when she met Rogers at a tiny airport somewhere in Eastern Europe, sending Wilson’s eyebrows into his hairline.

She greeted them cordially, gesturing over her shoulder to one of the Saints’ few unbranded aircraft. “ _Capitán_ , if you have no better plans, I think I may be able to provide you with some assistance.”

Wilson might have been skeptical at first, yeah, but Rogers was cautious and took note of the titanium  _fleur de lis_ tie tack before he made his decision.

* * *

So, Stark had himself and probably Hulk on the tail end of the highway to robot hell, but Cap and Wilson were availing themselves of a criminal network that had Wilson looking at his pet white boy like the world had gone crazy, and maybe it had, because Rogers was more at ease with the Saints than he’d been with anyone else since the Army. And the Saints knew from Army.

“We have information, _Capitán_ ,” Boss said, and pointed out where Miller and Kinsington’s lackies had invested personal time and effort into sifting their way through Widow’s SHIELD info dump.

Wilson was developing a tic in his eye.

“What’s in it for you?” he finally managed to get out, and Rogers, though he hadn’t said as much out loud, allowed his jaw to get tight on one side as he copied Wilson’s angle and looked at Boss expectantly.

“Fair question,” she acknowledged, sitting back in her chair and pouring herself a large glass of ice water. “One I’d ask myself, in your position. How much, Sergeant Wilson, do you know about Brooklyn history?”

Wilson squinted suspiciously, but Rogers maintained a careful, stoic blank.

“Probably not enough.”

“Ethnic gang violence around Brooklyn, at least in this timeline, trailed off a lot sooner than most places,” she said. “Among the Catholics in particular, because Miss Becky and the Padre reached out.”

Rogers started very slightly, and Wilson asked, “Becky who? What’s that got to do with us?”

“Becky Barnes,” Rogers said, moving away from the computer and sitting back. “So Padre would be- Father Donovan?”

“The very same,” Boss lifted her glass, then sipped from it, swishing the water around her mouth before she swallowed.

“Rogers is family, we know that. The Saints take care of our own. Miller and Kensie ripped down the leaks before anyone else could and they’ve had their teams looking specifically for family interests, including who needed to be purged for HYDRA sympathies- that shit’s un-Saintly conduct, because _fuck_ Nazis- and how we might best protect one of our founding fathers from little annoyances like the law, the Army, Stark, Wikileaks, the United Nations-”

Rogers’ shoulders shook with silent laughter.

“Didn’t expect that rap sheet, though,” Boss said, standing to pour two other glasses. “Solicitation?”

“They expunged my record,” Rogers said, winking at her over his glass and lifting it as he took it. “When they gave me the makeover.”

Boss offered the second glass to Wilson, who was recovering and giving Rogers his best wry expression. “Of course they did. But if Widow could put it out, Miller and Kensie could pick it up. They’re good at what they do. I never know what the fuck they’re talking about, but that’s why I pay them. It’s not my job. Lemon?”

Wilson tipped his glass out for the lemon. “So what is your job, then?”

Boss grinned, her teeth flawlessly framed by glossy, glittery Saints purple lipstick. “Ah, that’s why they call me ‘Boss.’ I’m HR. As far as I’m concerned, unless and until we get Barnes back, mm, the Brooklyn Saints are the original chapter, yeah? Iced Americano over there was _his_ pick for acting CEO.”

Rogers snorted into his glass.

“Captain America: Crime Lord,” he said. “Stupider shit has happened.”


	4. Then A New World Is In Store

So Boss took Wilson and Rogers to Steelport, because the Saints had just secured that particular bolthole. The Luchadores had gone easy, and the Deckers were on board, but the Morningstars were still being difficult, and that was all the excuse Rogers needed to get nostalgic. Wilson had grown up around a lot of gangs, somehow managed not to join any, but here he was, following Captain America off the goddamned deep end.

Boss, naturally, offered Rogers plenty of guns, but he waved her off and stuck with his shield and a baseball bat. It was a real laugh how few swings of that bat it took to get the Morningstars to fall in line. Some of them started filling in their star-marked cars with white paint to show their loyalty, and Boss found that hilarious.

Then the shit hit the fan.

White stars filling up the streets and pockets of activity where Captain America's personal thug contingent were doing business got attention. People didn't like the idea of Cap running with gangs, and Valderama could barely contain her glee at what was shaping up to be the story of the century. Kensington leaked his dossier to her personally and directly, on Rogers' advice, and that broke the Internet. Not only was Captain America a gangster, he had always been a gangster, and that hadn't made him a bad person or unfit for duty at all, not if the serum worked the way everyone supposed it did. 

It was only a matter of time before the only red star left on the street in any city was hiding up a sleeve on a confused and disillusioned man's metal arm, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Morningstars were terrified at first, then awed. A lot of them went into Saints' purple without complaints. The techies reported to Miller, the muscle to Boss, the call girls found themselves better paid and better kept than they'd ever been before. Money went in all directions. Neighborhoods got scrubbed. Police officers started to look the other way as people took care of themselves. Car chases and pedestrian fatalities plummeted. Rogers used a share of his profits to buy out a radio station and people heard classical jazz on FM in Steelport for the first time in three generations.

The government hated it, but there wasn't a whole lot they could do. Stark stayed in Manhattan. The Widow had gone to ground. Wikileaks got denial of service attacks that buried them in so many Deckers viruses that they couldn't get back up. The real funny part, of course, was how every week, a place or two would explode. White starred SUVs would drive out of the billowing clouds of smoke and debris with big band orchestra blaring out of the speakers. There weren't any civilian casualties. Armstrong was confused, then furious when Valderama scooped him again.

The warehouses, safehouses, and gated mansions were all HYDRA affiliates, and Cap had gone back to his roots to run the bastards down. When the white stars weren't in enough places, any gang who didn't want trouble with the Saints stepped up and volunteered, and Saints intel combed through the SHIELD dump to direct people to as many targets as possible.

Wouldn't you know it? Turns out the majority of street gangs are full of people from ethnic backgrounds that don't have any use for Nazis. Big surprise. The hunt got so intense that anyone who had any ideas that might line them up with HYDRA started preemptively surrendering because they didn't want problems with the first Avenger. There was no quarter.

Still, the purge of fascist viper pits was only half of Rogers and Wilson's agenda. Wilson was keeping up with Kensington and Miller and didn't like what he was hearing, especially from Miller. They couldn't find Barnes. Wilson didn't like it because he knew Rogers wouldn't hear it, no matter how many times it was said. It was easier to find clusters of HYDRA sympathizers, with their need for tech and supplies and access to power, than to find a single man hiding all by himself when he could be anywhere in the world. Facial recognition software could be thrown off by makeup, beards, hats, haircuts. There was no way to tell how he'd dress himself, where he'd go- the info dump showed HYDRA had taught the man ten languages, it would be all too easy for him to blend in with the woodwork. Boss was sympathetic, but Gat was with Wilson: the only way they'd find Barnes was if Barnes decided he wanted to be found.

Rogers took out his frustration on the streets, in show downs, with his shield, his bat, and a thousand pounds of C4. If he couldn't find his man, he could at least find targets.


End file.
